Defendant characteristics and judgment behaviors of adolescent mock jurors

Fictitious court cases involving child abuse were presented to 140 male undergraduates and 140 male junior high school students to determine if the tendency to deal harshly with alleged criminals is dependent upon certain defendant characteristics. Results indicate that younger adolescent jurors give longer sentences than older adolescent jurors, and male defendants receive longer sentences than female defendants. While no significant main effects for case content were found, younger jurors gave longer sentences and attributed more responsibility to a parent who beat his/her child, while older adolescent jurors attributed more responsibility and prescribed longer sentences to a parent who burned the child. Implications for future research with adolescent jurors are discussed.Received Ph.D. from Lehigh University, Major interests include adolescent and adult personality and social development, developmental abnormalities, and jury behavior.Received Ph.D. from Lehigh University. Major interests are personality and sex-role development, and psychology and the law.Received Ph.D. from the University of Cincinnati. Major interests are cognitive development, guilt feelings, and jury behavior.